On repeat

First things first: crisis averted in the blog secrecy matter. My mom claims not to remember being told the name and link of this site and doesn't plan to visit. That's a relief. Now to write about what I was going to yesterday...

In my year as a knitter I have tended to repeat projects. Currently I'm working on my fourth hat from the same pattern (PDF). I have at least one more in mind as a Christmas gift. That probably seems nuts to some of you. Isn't it boring to knit the same thing multiple times? Actually, no.

Knitting the same thing has helped me learn. On the first hat I tried out magic loop and discovered that I hadn't made the hat long enough to my liking. For the second hat I found the proper length. On hat number three I realized that I hadn't quite been doing magic loop correctly. I've gone up a needle size on the fourth hat to resolve the tightness problem.

I look at this repetitive knitting as a way of improving. That's what last year's Christmas scarf knitting accomplished. I can dedicate myself to a particular project and figure it out better than if I spread them out over a long period of time. It becomes easier to see connections and through lines in directors' works when going to film retrospectives. Depth of study brings clarity, so that's why I don't mind knitting the hat pattern over and over.

Since speed is also a factor in knitting for the holidays, repeating projects means that I'm faster too.

Keeping all this in mind, I'm ready to do something different.